Last week, a reader replied to an email I sent at the start of the year called “My 2026 plans for this newsletter and my coaching”

I’d forgotten I’d sent that email.

But as we’re almost a sixth of the way through the year (it seems crazy just saying that) I thought it could be a good moment to hit pause, take a step back and see how I’m doing against those plans.

So here we go. My 2026 plans, each with a status update:

*** Keep sending my “week-daily” emails: Nothing much to say here. Yes, I missed a day last week. But I also sent nine emails the week before to promote Dr Giles P Croft’s Relationships Masterclass. The ebbs and flows of daily email life! Onwards…

*** Add 2,000 readers to my newsletter: I’ve added the grand total of diddly squat so far this year. But my new lead magnet (How to Work Your Way) is coming along nicely and I have big plans for this. So let’s see what happens over the next few weeks and months

*** Create an info product: The first draft is done and I’m really excited about this. I’ve taken an insight which has had a HUGE impact on my life. Then I’ve gone deep into the insight, unpacking it from lots of angles, sharing examples and ultimately exploring all the ways this insight has led to more freedom & choice at work (and outside work too). More to come on this one soon…

*** Publish my book Don’t Quit Your Job: The book is done. The cover is pretty much done. The only thing stopping me hit publish is a moment of wisdom (or insanity/procrastination) a few weeks ago when I decided to send the draft book to a big cheese in the non-fiction world to ask for a testimonial. She said she’d be up for reading the book as a starting point. And so now, I wait…

*** Marking my 40^th birthday with some sort of amazing one-off offer: This one didn’t happen. Maybe I’ll do a cool offer for my 41^st instead

*** Finding more interesting folk to interview about work, careers, success and fulfilment. My interview with Squiggly Career experts Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis is on the way soon. Let’s see what other opportunities pop up here too

*** Running more Mindset & Clarity Workshops for my banking colleagues. The next workshop is in the bag for March

*** Taking my workshops on the road: No dice here yet but I have the feeling this one will pick up steam soon too. As you might’ve gathered, I’m about spotting opportunities just as much as engineering opportunities for some of these plans – and for the time being, that’s the approach I’m taking with this one 

*** Completing my Executive Leadership Coaching Apprenticeship: I’m about 70 hours down, 280 odd hours to go. Ticking along nicely.

Putting that altogether, I’ll give myself a B+. 

Not that anyone’s keeping score.

I should also add:

There’s one other goal I’ve set myself since my "start of the year email" and that’s to create a new role at work where all I do is coach. I’ve got a coffee date coming up next week with one of my company’s HR head honchos, so we’ll see what comes from that.

Yes, that might not sound like much progress in 6 weeks. 

But then again, one idea which Michael Neill is drumming home in Creating the Impossible (that’s where the idea for my new coaching role sprung form) is that creation is non-linear. 

I’ve seen this myself as part of the 50 coaching hours I need to complete for my Apprenticeship. No sooner had I started wondering how to tackle this than I received an email from a colleague who’d taken part in one of my workshops, asking if I could spend an hour coaching each colleague in a talent program he runs.

That program has 25 colleagues.

And while I’m not sure what will come of that, going from 0 to 25 in the space of one email really does hammer home how creation is non-linear.

And yes, how so much of this stuff is out of our control too. Hence not always trying to engineer the opportunities but simply taking the next step and following my nose.

Anyway, I think that’s enough for now.

One of the items on my list this year was “take my workshops on the road”.

So far, the road has remained suspiciously workshop-free. But let’s see if we can do something about that.

If you work somewhere that would like a session on clearer thinking and better decision-making, I’d be delighted to come and run that for you.

Hit reply and let’s chat.

To fulfilment,

Tom